That’s according to former Blues winger Joe Cole who reckons his old pal only made up his mind after watching the youngsters in training.

The west Londoners have been impressive this season with Lampard adopting an exciting and attacking style.

Cole is adamant that Lampard didn’t join the club with preconceived ideas, though.

“With Frank, I don’t think it was a conscience effort to come in and play these young players straight away,” he told BT Sport.

“I think he’s had a lot of his squad and because of the transfer ban there was more and more of them training and he’s looking at it and thinking: ‘well these guys are producing for me, they’re doing the business in pre-season’.